Revealing the Mystery of the Giant Hole in the Indian Ocean
A giant hole known as a gravity hole in the Indian Ocean. (Photo: The Economist)
- The Indian Ocean holds many mysteries, one of which is a giant hole known as a gravity hole.
The point of the giant hole is right in the Indian Ocean or located between the Australian continent, the Asian continent and the African continent. This process occurs because the earth's gravitational pull is weaker. This condition resulted in a drop in sea level of more than 100 meters.
This anomaly has confused geologists because of the long period of time it occurred.
However, researchers claim to have found a scientific explanation for its formation, namely that it comes from a lump of magma in the earth. The formation is similar to the material used to create volcanoes
Times Travel reported, Monday (1/4/2024), the help of supercomputer technology was used to analyze this phenomenon to simulate the potential evolution of the region by tracing it up to 140 million years ago. The results are summarized in a recent study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The Earth's irregular shape and differences in density have an important influence on surface features and its gravitational pull. As stated by Attreyee Ghosh, geophysicist and professor at the Center for Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, variations in density across the planet directly affect its geoid, determining the hypothetical rate that water will reach equilibrium at the surface below the Earth's surface.
The giant hole, aka the gravity hole, is officially called the low geoid of the Indian Ocean. This phenomenon is the most significant example of a gravitational anomaly in this region. Because it forms a circular depression that starts from the southern tip of India and covers about 1.2 million square miles.
This anomaly was first identified by Dutch geophysicist Felix Andries Vening Meinesz in 1948 during a gravity survey and has yet to be clearly explained.
Ghosh and his team conducted computer simulations spanning a period of 140 million years, observing the movement of tectonic plates and magma in the mantle. In six of the 19 simulations, a geoid low similar to that in the Indian Ocean emerged. The main similarity factor in these models is the presence of magma plumes, which are believed to be responsible for the formation of gravitational holes from the disappearance of ancient oceans as the Indian landmass shifted and eventually collided with Asia millions of years ago.